Polly Seip

Polly Seip is a contemporary painter based in CT, in the US.
I love the use of wide format in these works, and the exploration of the changing effects of light on the sea.
Here's a link to her studio blog: pollyseipfineart.blogspot.com

Here's another example of a wide format composition, by the British painter Frederick William Hayes. This is from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Criccieth, Wales, late 19th century.

Square Format

Jaume Laporta was born in Barcelona, in 1940, to a family with a long artistic tradition. He started painting when he was 14 years old.

After moving to the Costa Brava, he found himself attracted to the beauty of the Mediterranean, and decided to devote himself to capturing it's fishing and seafaring life. 

In his oil and pastel paintings, Laporta tries to maintain a realistic feel while playing with his media and brushstrokes  to avoid slavish reproduction of the real world. 

I seem to be posting a lot of square format paintings lately. I often wonder if CD covers, and the square thumbnails on Flickr etc, have increased public acceptance of square images.

An artist once told me many years ago: "Never try to sell square paintings, people don't like them." But public acceptance of square canvases seems to have increased since then, perhaps due to CD covers and the square thumbnails in Flickr etc. 

It's best to chose a format that suits the subject, but chosing a square format can help an artist to break out of cliched compositions.

Wide Format

Unknown

A wide format crops away superfluous elements. If a painting is about the sea, there's no need for large areas of sky and sand.